Is It Love?
by Emo-Ki
Summary: Zim finds Dwicky and exacts revenge on him for breaking the Dib.


"I want nothing more than to kill Dwicky. I mean, he's the reason for all of this! Dib never was the same after Dwicky betrayed him, it just took a while for me to notice. Now that I have I regret laughing at him while he screamed out his hurt to the world. Ever since then I've noticed that he doesn't talk to anyone, especially not adults. Dib has come to realize that no one will help him save the world from me. He finally realizes that he's absolutely alone.  
"I think that in itself is what makes me not want to destroy Earth or enslave the Earthnoids. Something about Dib made me change my mind about conquering this pathetic planet. Maybe it's because Dib himself is so pathetic. Don't get me wrong, Dib is pathetic anyways, but I've seen a deeper level of him and he's worse off than he thinks. As the humans say, Dib wears his heart on his sleeve. He always has, everything he feels he's always told me.  
"Except for after Dwicky I sense that he keeps things from me. It's like Dib can't stand to even look at me because he knows that by fighting me he's fighting to keep every single person who's ever neglected and doubted him alive. Dib really is in a rough spot; give up everything by surrendering to me or continue struggling throughout his miserable existence. To both of us it would mean a lot if he gives up. For the moment I know better than to dare hope for something like that to happen.  
"I've often wondered what Dib would do if I left Earth. How would he feel knowing that Earth is safe from me? What would he do without me? Knowing him he would think it's a trick and search for me on that filthy dirtball planet until he's forced to admit that I've also abandoned him or goes crazy. Sometimes I think he's going to snap, do something irreversible that will land him in one of those Insane Asylums…only for life this time. I hate to admit it, but I try to cool him down before he gets to that point.  
"I like to remind him that I am here, that he does have a mission as Earth's Protector to protect Earth; even if his mission is self-appointed. Sometimes I'm subtle and flick a note with some doodles at him. In this manner I've managed to teach him to read and write Irken, a far more useful skill than any the Skool teaches. He always lights up when he gets a note from me, it's a strange light kind of like he swallowed lightning; it's there and gone in an instant but I know I've accomplished what I desired. Sometimes I'm not subtle at all and I get in his face about things.  
"I've said some things that may give him the wrong impressions but I can't do anything about how he takes them, so long as it keeps him from being locked up. Sure, I can always break him out, but then I would need a reason that he'll accept and that just seems like too much work. When I'm not being subtle a lot of things come out that I don't mean to say. I've screamed at him everything from _Look at me you worthless human! Acknowledge that Zim is still here!_ to _You deserve everything that I'm going to do to this planet! It will be horrible Dib-beast, just you wait!_.  
"The old Zim wouldn't have gone to such lengths to make his presence known to some random alien barely out of its Smeethood. Maybe its when everything about Dib clicked for me, in the months that followed Dwicky's departure, that I can honestly say there's an old and new Zim. I still haven't figured out how I feel about this new Zim, but it doesn't matter as long as I get this mission done.  
"Most people would say that Dib is a distraction from my mission. He isn't. The only reason I keep letting him win and bother with him is that I need someone to fight. What's the fun in just taking over a planet without resistance? Since Dib is literally the only resistance on the entire planet, he's the one I have to fight. I just have to help him sometimes. He isn't a distraction.  
"Since Dwicky left I've been watching the steady decline in Dib's Dibness until it became too much for me to bear. I will not have my rival be so much more pathetic because of some stupid lying human. The funny part about all of that is that Dwicky is a councilor for Skool children who used to believe in aliens. Except that Dwicky didn't think I was one until he saw me out of my disguise, so he was lying to Dib about that. And a councilor is supposed to help people, in Dwicky's case Skool children who are defective in whatever way.  
"Dwicky did not help Dib in the slightest. Yes, I saw a change in him when Dwicky was by his side, but once Dwicky left him Dib became lower than he has ever been. I can still hear his screams echoing in my mind, bouncing off my skull painfully.  
"Sometimes I hate looking at Dib as much as he hates looking at me. He used to be great, for a human, but now he's so wormy that I get sick just thinking about him. I don't want to remember Dib as an old and a new. I want him to be the same old Dib that I've known and battled since I came to this dirt ball planet. Maybe I try to keep him going because I don't want to face someone who's already as low as he can go; I don't want someone broken.  
"Not that Dib wasn't broken before, but Dwicky made it worse. Like taking a hammer to glass…except that by some perverse miracle the glass doesn't fall apart even though you can see all of the lines indicating that it's shattered. Through sheer determination it's holding itself together but if you so much as blow on it the whole thing will fall apart with a relieved sigh.  
"Dib wants to believe that Dwicky will come back. Well, he was right about that; but not in the way he was hopping. Dwicky isn't back because he wants to be on this toxic planet to see the mess he left behind. Dwicky is back because I brought him back.  
"You see, Dwicky needs to pay for what he's done to Dib and in extension me. He tried to _help_ but he really just wanted to interfere. I bet he dreams of touching Dib's young and scarred body. Dib and his body belong to me; those scars were made by me and would look wrong on anyone else.  
I suppose that over the years I've gotten a bit possessive of Dib. Can anyone blame me? So many times he's been almost taken from me, by my own hand or someone else's. Once I almost lost him to the monsters in his head!  
"So I hunted down Dwicky. You should have seen the look on his face when he saw me. I don't know what he expected but I certainly didn't give him a friendly greeting. He was in a far corner of the galaxy trying some alien cuisine. He has the audacity to eat when he left Dib here slowly dying?! It's completely unacceptable and just another thing to punish him for.  
"Of course he knows why he's here. After all, Dwicky can hear me making the recording. Isn't that right, Mr. Dwicky?"

Strapped to a table is the disheveled Skool councilor himself, looking considerably less happy to see Zim than he was only a few hours ago. His black hair is a mess, blue eyes wildly following Zim's every movement, blood coming from a lip that's been bitten by nervous teeth too many times, wrinkled tie tightened enough to be uncomfortable, white button up shirt ripped open to reveal a bare pink chest, and somewhere along the way a shoe was lost. The white buttons from the shirt have rolled in random places, looking as out of place as the man is in the Irken's lab.  
Zim didn't bother to cover Dwicky's mouth because he wants to hear the human scream. Now that mouth is being used to plea for it's owner's life. "I-I didn't know that he would take it so badly! I was going to come back! Trust me, Zim, I never wanted to leave him." A dark bruise on his face in the shape of Zim's hand stops Dwicky from saying Dib's name, something that the human has no right to do anymore. Unfortunately for Dwicky, Zim is unforgiving. To his plea Zim remains silent.  
The blue eyes widen as Zim prepares his dissection tools on a table beside Dwicky. Zim's sensitive lekku pick up the vibrations of Dwicky thrashing around on the table in a useless attempt to get free and the frantic pounding of his heart. He's seen humans die of extreme emotions - is watching one slowly die of them - and eyes Dwicky warily. "You think that killing me will make Dib feel better? I still have the tape, I can give it to him. He can turn it in, or try to, and you can stop him. It'll be ok."  
Zim is almost positive that the very same fantasy has gone through Dib's head a million times. Even if Zim did agree he knows that it won't change Dib, especially not when Zim informs him of the deal Dwicky made. For a moment his cold anger flares up in a flash of furious heat and Zim rips a computer from a nearby desk, throwing it across the room with a loud growl. He turns to Dwicky, claws and teeth bared threateningly, ready to tear into flesh.  
Then Zim remembers that he has to take it slow, that Dwicky has to suffer as much as possible even though it won't ever amount to how much Dib has suffered. His emotions change so swiftly that before he can stop himself Zim is on his knees, letting out a pained wail and clutching his antennae until it hurts.

"I cannot believe the amount of pain Dib has gone through. He's barely even out of Smeethood and he's already spent. This pain and sorrow he feels is so much, I don't think he has much longer to live. It won't even be me killing him. Even if I were to go to his house right now and rip out his heart with my own claws I won't be the one to kill him. You have no idea how it feels to lose everything.  
"Dib is my everything. At least for now he is. No, even after I kill him he'll still be my everything. I've invested so much in him, not even this stupid planet,_him_. He'll always be my first conquered enemy, my first real success. Well, he would have if it wasn't for this human here.  
"Dwicky ruined everything. He ruined Dib. What am I supposed to do? What do I do? I don't know what to do. I hate not knowing what to do. I hate feeling so weak, so human. It's disgusting. But I can't help it. "Maybe Earth has affected my pak so I feel human emotions or something stupid like that. I can't fix Dib.  
I have tried so hard to make him my Dib again but he's so different. Why did you have to go and ruin Dib? Why did you have to butt in and ruin everything? What we had was so good and you just took it apart and left the pieces in an unrecognizable mess."

Zim turns his own wide pleading maroon eyes on Dwicky; it's the closest he'll ever come to begging in his life. His spooch tightens as the Irken thinks of what his enemy would say about him kneeling on the floor like this. The collected icy anger returns and with it the patient merciless killer.  
Dwicky seems to sense the change as soon as it happens. The human goes still and then thrashes around with more determination to break lose than before. Zim watches quietly, wondering how long that determination will keep Dwicky alive. "Let me go Zim! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. It was an accident! I'm so sorry." Dwicky is ignored in favor of selecting the perfect tool to being what is surely going to be a long process. He selects one that he likes, a wickedly curved blade with a fine point for cutting open flesh on one end and a handle on the other side that doubles as a laser that can melt through bone. "Please let me go Zim! What do you hope to accomplish with this?! Killing me will make him worse!"  
Zim glances at Dwicky, considers replying, then decides against it. Instead the Irken sets a timer, wanting to know exactly how long Dwicky suffers. His pak is already an internal clock so he will know the exact time down to the second the bastard dies. Zim returns to Dwicky's side, looks down at him with an expressionless face as he decides where to begin.  
Dwicky gives it one last try, "I love Dib, I'll do anything for him!" Zim freezes from the inside but unlike his cold reptilian anger coiled and waiting patiently for its prey to finally breath its last breath, it's as though he's just stopped working and shut down. Only his eyes tear themselves away from the pink flesh to stare at the opposite wall. "I'll do anything for him, Zim." The plea is a whisper but Zim still hears it. He looks down, locking eyes with the scared blue twin pools.

"Then die for him. If you'll do anything for Dib, then you'll die for him! You don't deserve to die thinking that you're going to be making him better because you aren't. You're just going away again, this time permanently, and he won't ever know. Dib will never know that you died, that I killed you for him!  
Eventually you're just going to be a bad faded memory. Even if you fade it doesn't matter because he's scarred for life because of it! How can you be so selfish that you'll just tear him apart and then you have the nerve to smile at him?! What is wrong with you?!  
"What's wrong with me?! I can't believe I actually went into space to get you. To get Mr. Dwicky. Just to bring him to my lab to torture him. Because of all the people on this Tallest forsaken planet, _you_ are the one who has hurt him beyond repair. You are the one who gave him hope, who made him believe in his cause more than he ever has, and you have the audacity to rip that all away. You left and you messed him up worse than his abusive sister, neglectful father, cruel classmates ever have or could.  
"You're going to live a whole lot longer than you plan to, Dwicky, because I won't let you die even if I have to fix you up every time I injure you."

The coiled snake waiting to strike is ever patient but with the excitement of the upcoming kill it's getting restless; it demands blood. And blood shall be paid in full by the time Zim is finished with the councilor. Screams come from the mouth of the human as his last hope of getting out, of being able to live and do as he pleases, is torn away. Zim will not let Dwicky's death be swift in the slightest; he doesn't care what he has to do to keep Dwicky alive, Zim will do it.  
He positions the blade above the place where Dwicky's liver is then slowly presses it into the soft pink flesh. Instantly red blood wells up around the blade and spills down Dwicky's unnaturally still side. A quick glance confirms that Dwicky is still alive and conscious, he's just holding his breath in an attempt to keep movement to a minimum and by extension damage. Unfortunately for Dwicky, the human has to breathe sometime.  
With a practiced flick of his wrist Zim cuts from one side of the human to the other. Where the blade was a red line appears from seemingly no where. Zim knows better; the blood comes from the shallow cut just made. Just as he raises the blade to reposition it Dwicky gasps. The human shivers, his blue eyes horrified at the sight of his own blood.  
Zim is tempted to tell him to suck it up, that Dib has literally gone through worse at Zim's hands, but he doesn't give in to the temptation. It will give the human too much strength to continue living, a will to survive is not what Zim wants him to have. Zim wants the councilor to feel so bad that feeling alone kills him. Regretfully, Zim can't wait that long or else Dib will wonder where he's gotten to.  
Rapidly Zim swipes the blade across flesh, over and over, being careful to not mark Dwicky in the same way Dib is just because he doesn't want them to have twin scars. Blood splatters from the speed he's going. Dwicky barely has time to get out a scream before Zim pauses to look at his handiwork. With all of the blood it's kind of hard to see the cuts themselves, but Zim knows that he's achieved his goal of making Dwicky suffer slowly. The human raises his head, lets out a pained groan, then allows his head to drop back onto the metal table. Right now Zim can see that this is going to take a while even though he just cut the human at least fifty times in the past three minutes. He judges the amount of blood that's coming out verses how deep the wounds are then decides that he doesn't need to clean or bandage them; Dwicky won't be bleeding out tonight.  
Zim's internal clock is telling him that he has to get ready for Skool. "What do you think he'll do once he finds out what you did?" Dwicky asks him between groans and pants. Zim doesn't know, he doesn't care either, because Dib is never going to find out about this. "I think you're in love with him Zim. You're so fucked up and obsessed with him that you're going to kill me in his name. His being hurt, it hurts you too, doesn't it? You can't stand the thought of anyone hurting him aside from you. That's how selfish you are. You can't even see what he needs, you're so blinded by your own."  
Once again Zim remains silent in spite of the comebacks, the venomous comments that threaten to leave his mouth. Dwicky is just trying to make Zim kill him faster, make him let it slip to Dib about what's going, make him question his own judgment. But Zim already knows how he feels and why he's doing what he's doing. It has nothing to do with petty things like love. One thing Dwicky did get right, though, is that Zim hates other people hurting Dib. That's Zim's job and recently, because of other people, he hasn't been able to do it very well.  
Zim leaves Dwicky in the lab still bleeding. He pulls off his gloves and puts a clean pair on. Aside from a few drops of blood on the discarded gloves there is no blood anywhere else. The Irken marches silently through the base with his hands clasped behind his back. Its time to meet his rival.


End file.
